“These days, people want to learn before they buy; be educated instead of pitched.”
~ Brian Clark
The impact of social media marketing for doctors can be witnessed in our daily routine, whether it is to gain followers, increase patient engagement, drive new customers, educate, or answer common questions.
With a plethora of healthcare content and social media channels, are you still:
- Trying to understand the need for it
- Figuring out the best practices, or
- Exhausting over ideas for creative posts
Whatever your concern is, it’s an era to be trendy in your digital presence.
So, let’s answer these concerns on digital marketing for doctors in our post today!
Why social media marketing for doctors?
Social media marketing for medical practice can be used to:
Raise awareness about emerging health issues
Tackle misinformation
Cite the sources, identify the author, visit the original website, check the date and relevance, etc.
Openly communicate and answer the audience’s questions
This is crucial to avoid self-diagnosis or self-medication. For Gen-Z, it is an excellent channel to spread facts and communicate at the time of crisis.
One such unforgettable example is the Corona pandemic time!
Patient engagement
Opening up about a disease can sometimes be difficult face-to-face. Social media marketing for doctors can help your patient to communicate with you in a less professional environment.
Study and recruitment
For upcoming medical students and job seekers, social media marketing for doctors gives them ample amounts of study materials, research, vacancies, etc. It is equally beneficial for the employer to hire medical professionals.
Marketing
Last but not the least, social media can boost your business, promote services, and bring in more customers.
Best practices for social media in healthcare
Like everything else, social media for doctors comes with its own set of rules and regulations, especially if you belong to the healthcare sector.
Several major medical organizations, such as AMA, CDC, AAFP, etc. have come up with a set of social media guidelines for healthcare professionals, which are:
- Maintain professionalism: Being associated with the medical field, be accurate in your communication and avoid any error of information or unprofessional language. You represent your profession online and must follow humanistic values congruent with the medical profession. Being open to communication, providing help, being readily answerable and liable are the key characteristics.
- Follow HIPAA compliance: To maintain patient privacy and confidentiality, a certain set of rules is planned that is known as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). These rules also apply to all the social media posts for doctors. In case you are posting a ‘before and after case study’ of a patient, don’t expose the patient’s privacy. Permissions are required and should always be kept as the top-most priority.
- Safeguard the data: Whenever you create any social media account, apply security and privacy to that account so that your data isn’t copied or removed without permission. Always monitor your history and shares. Also, the internet is forever. Whatever once written or sent remains in the backup. Make sure you are not sharing any information directly or indirectly that can hamper your reputation.
- Keep patient boundaries: Maintain a professional relationship following the ethical guidelines whenever you chat with the patient online. Always chat from your professional media account, keeping your personal account separate.
- Educate, and not treat: Do not practice your services via social media. It is only meant to share facts, raise awareness, and promote your business. For everything else, patients should contact you personally. Responding inappropriately to any patient in the comment section may pose legal threats later.
- Maintain ethical responsibilities: Consider this your ethical responsibility to shed light on something inappropriate posted on social media, so that necessary actions can be taken on time. Report to authorities immediately for any kind of misconduct by a professional team on social media.
What?
Did you just create an account on social media or re-activated your old account?
Great!!!
But again, your pool of content ideas for social media marketing for doctors is empty!
No worries, here are some fun ideas for you!!
Social Media Marketing for Doctors — Content Ideas
Patient testimonials and stories
Let’s begin with the basics. To boost trust in your business, testimonials and journey stories are fail-proof ways.
This kind of social media post is called “Social Proof” of your presence and reliability. Consider it as word-of-mouth marketing from one patient to several other customers. Having a positive review of your practice promotes your brand and drives engagement.
Testimonials can be shared creatively, like:
- Create a campaign “Testimonial (day of the week)” and share a story on that day of every week.
- If the testimonial refers to any specific doctor, create a post with their photos.
- Share stories for quick reads.
- You can also use testimonials for your paid ad campaign.
2. Welcome or Farewell, a Fellow Teammate
Use your social media to give a creative credit to your team. This will help patients understand the team they are dealing with the moment they land on your social media page after consultation.
Making such fun and creative social media posts will help doctors have a more personal touch with the patients rather than all strictly speaking and professional, as presumed by the patient.
The team members can share their stories/ journeys/ hobbies that interest them apart from being medical professionals. Share gratitude and honors to make them feel welcome or send warm farewells. Who knows, your comment section may get some lovely doctor-patient stories.
3. Behind the Scenes
One of the most trending topics for social media posts for doctors is the uncut versions of what exactly happens behind the scenes.
People are curious to know all about the person who affected their lives. For the medical professionals, it can be so much more. Share:
- Your facility pictures
- Any event pictures, how you prepared for the same, showing doctors as fun enthusiasts
- Festivities and celebrations, if any
4. Share Employee Accolades and Awards
Make your social media shine with all the medals that your employees gathered, whether internally or from an external organization. This is a perfect opportunity as people love to listen to the success story of their favorite doctors. Show off your staff/ employee of the month/ employee under spotlight, etc.
5. Service Updates
With the new trends of TikTok videos and Instagram reels, health professionals can now opt for a fun way to update their patients about any operational changes, discounts, giveaways, etc.
Stories are also recommended if you want someone to see them as soon as it is posted. Draw attention by practicing some rules for the giveaways, like:
- Follow this account
- Like the post and tag your friends in the comment section
- Share on your story……. And so on
Reposting discounts and giveaways in your stories with a countdown is also trending.
6. News and Education
Announcements of new procedures, practices, diseases, equipment, etc. make for another social media posts for doctors.
Educate your patients with takeaways by using bullet points, colorful graphs, and various themes. Share articles on ‘LinkedIn Pulse’ related to the medical services you offer. Share research material, papers, and journal links by converting them into a simple language for the students.
7. Community Events
Sponsoring a health event is a perfect way to gain some recognition, whether you are new to the business or an old player. Use the logo of your brand on the event post on social media. If you are hosting any event, then announce the same using colorful themes and pictures.
Social media is the new invitation channel where people search for happening events near them. Use the channel wisely to make your event a success.
Takeaway on Social Media Marketing for Doctors
Health industry is full of content and the best part is, you can rotate the topics among various fields of study since everything is interdependent.
So, what are you waiting for? Pick any idea from above and start working on it.
Or
Use the creative team of Writerena to do the job for you. Keep your social media rolling with the help of our medical professionals who know all the hacks for creating an attractive social media post, meant only for your business!
Click here to hire our social media marketing services for doctors.
Want to know some apps that can help you in creating outstanding social media posts that appeal to the eyes and guarantee likes and comments? Subscribe to our email to know more!
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